The Voice of the Sea
by tmitnaiael
Summary: Theon is rescued, is unwittingly crowned King of Love and Beauty, falls in love, and swims. The ironborn, as ever, are skeptics. Well, mostly.


Asha wanted to know if the mermaid had had nice teats. While Theon had never thought of discussing anyone's teats with his sister, the appalling notion of doing so was not what stupefied him.

He had not noticed, in truth. There had been something too arresting in her gaze, blue as the sea and not half as cold; and in the smile that should have irked him by its hesitancy but had not; and in the bright peal of her laughter when he had tried to speak to her and instead coughed up half the sea and a sickeningly long strand of kelp. He had been too entranced to satisfy his baser curiosities.

Part of him was perturbed that his thoughts had been consumed by their encounter but not even once turned to the logistics of fucking a mermaid. Mostly, though, he was surprised to find he was disgusted.

It seemed wrong—unacceptably vulgar—sinful, even—to describe such a creature as he had seen as possessing _teats_. He could scarcely believe that even Asha could ask such a crude question.

Theon had laid his palm flat on the table between them. The gaps between his spread-out fingers had been too inviting; some time ago, though it seemed Theon had yet to notice, she had taken to rapidly thrusting her dirk between his fingers. With anyone else she might have had half a mind to let her hand slip, but she was always careful with Theon; mother would never forgive her.

Asha was waiting, purely from habit, for some sign of the irritation she normally effaced. Eye rolls. Scoffs. Glowers. She realized none of that had come. Disappointed, she raised her eyes.

Theon seemed to be goggling at her.

First the poor thing was having delusions involving mermaids, and now he had taken to goggling.

Asha pocketed her dirk with nimble fingers and stood. It was best to leave. Whatever Theon had might be catching.

* * *

He thought her asleep.

She rested her cheek on one forearm; both lay folded over the rock. Her eyes were shut. Her hair streamed over her shoulders, lying on the surface of the water where it moved gently, swayed by the waves.

Theon reached out to touch her but she was gone before he could. The slap of her tail against the water rang in his ears, the only sign that she had really been there.

His arm remained outstretched for a few moments. He dropped it abruptly with a rueful grin.

She had left behind a collection stones. Some smooth; some jagged; one almost clear, like some sort of crystal, when he later held it up to the sun. Theon pocketed them one by one.

* * *

Alannys Harlaw had never been so horrified as she was when her youngest child—hardly a babe, really!—confided, "I think, mother I think—I think I might be in love."

Her heart seized. She was not, no, she was not ready for this. She wouldn't be, not for years yet.

He was a lean boy. She grasped his cheeks between his palms—_yes! there it was_: his baby fat. He was too young, too, too young to—

Theon appended, "With a mermaid."

"Oh, thank god," cried Alannys, relieved.

* * *

On the rocks lay a crude sort of crown: yellow, green, and violet strands of kelp twisted and knotted together. It was dry, which made him wonder how long she had waited for him. He was extraordinarily pleased, though, that she had.

They had no common tongue. He tried to relay that the creation would suit her much better than him but she was insistent. He lowered his head. Theon could feel, more than see, her beaming as she placed her wreath. She fidgeted, hands fluttering about his temples, and then she began to adjust his dark locks with the absent- and single-mindedness of an artist.

His fingers drew ripples in the seawater between them. He desired to raise them and touch her hair as she did his. Afraid he would startle her away again, he did not.

It was no great feat to content himself instead in reveling in her ministrations.

* * *

A shadow fell over him. Theon did not invite its owner to sit with him.

At length his father said, "You're probably not mad, boy."

Theon growled, "I never thought—"

"What was she like?" Theon hesitated; his father generally took little interest in him.

Against his better instincts he answered, perhaps because his father had been the only islander to not flippantly dismiss his encounter.

"We've merfolk 'round these parts, aye, but none so fair as that. They've all hair like pitch and the cold, hard grey eyes of sharks. I don't doubt the existence of this mermaid that so... fortuitously saved you from drowning," his lips quirked; "but whatever enchantment she's got you under... you'd best learn to see past."

Theon rose. It was too much to expect from his father, but— "You don't understand."

He stormed off. His father did not watch him go.

Balon understood better than Theon knew.

* * *

He was thinking he should have shaved. Her hands cradled either side of his face and Theon worried that she must mislike the feel of his stubble, which he imagined she found abrasive. She allayed this fear when the side of her nose brushed against his cheek and then against the side of his own nose.

She had raised herself up till her navel was level with the water's surface. He could count her ribs. He wanted to press his fingers into the slots between them.

Her lips found a place between his brows and swept down the bridge of his nose where they lingered, just half a second, at the tip. Then she was pulling away, gently and slowly untangling his fingers from her locks.

He let her. He was thinking he shouldn't. He was thinking he ought to draw her nearer. He wanted to slant his mouth hard over hers.

He wanted, not cruelly, to sink his teeth into the soft pink of her lip and see if her blood, like his, tasted of iron. He wanted to kiss the saltwater from her skin.

He wanted to suck bruises onto her sharp thin wrists, so she might see them when she left him and think of him at least a tenth as often as he thought of her.

Theon thought about how desperately he wanted and wanted and wanted.

Behind her the sun was setting, spearing the sky with fire; she dulled it with her brilliant presence. She left him with a smile that might have been a promise. She drifted away and she did not look back.

He was shaking like some greenlander, and worse still he knew better than to attribute it to the cold of the evening.

After a time Theon swam from the shoals to the main shore and stretched out on his back. His left arm lay perpendicular to the length of his body. The sea ebbed towards and away from it, touching his fingers just once. He slept.

* * *

He woke feeling as though he had slept long and peacefully, though he could not have lain there more than a few hours. It was nighttime. There were no stars. Above him the moon was a harsh slash; it seemed as if part of the purple night had been cut away to show bright bone beneath. He had never seen her by this light. He wanted to.

Theon disrobed mechanically and waded into the water. He swam out until the island he had left behind was hardly a speck. His strokes were sure and swift.

The crashing of the waves about him sounded like her voice calling him. It could not have been. He had not thought to tell her his name.


End file.
